Food service sergeant recalls time overseas during Vietnam War

Nov. 11, 2012

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Dave Stever grew up reading about World War II and the big parades and celebrations in Times Square that followed after those who fought returned to America.

The homecoming received by soldiers then was not what he remembers when he came back stateside from Vietnam in the early 1970s. There were no crowds welcoming or greeting soldiers at the airport. No confetti or people lined along the street waving flags.

Stever, an E-4 in the Air Force, returned home September 1973, at the tail end of the war. By then, he said, people were tired of it.

“They didn’t really care what we did, just as long as we got out,” said Stever, who worked in food service. “When I flew in to San Francisco with my uniform on, I didn’t get faced with the spitting or the name calling, but there wasn’t the warm welcome home like I envisioned.”

Stever was 20 years old when he was sent to war in September 1972. He served in both Thailand and Vietnam for more than a year, preparing and serving food.

“I worked in the storeroom, which means I ordered the supplies, received them, issued out to the cooks,” he said.

During his time in service, he fed 1,500 people in a three-hour time period at nights, mainly because most of the flying was done during the day, he said. Service started at 10:30 p.m. and normally continued until 1 a.m.

“It is my niche,” he said. “You’re providing hot food to people that really need it. You’re giving them a little bit of encouragement. Our big days were Thanksgiving and Christmas. We went all out, because here are these guys ... miles from home, and we could provide this for them.”

Coming home

But it was the return to the home they longed for that many Vietnam veterans struggled with.

“These guys had gone and done exactly what they were told to do,” Stever said. “They had gone over, (and) fought for their buddies. One thing any soldier or Marine will tell you is when you are out in the field fighting, you’re not fighting really for God and country, your mom and apple pie.

“You’re fighting for the person next to you. You’re taking care of your buddy and your troops and the people around you. (We) didn’t appreciate the spitting, name-calling ... ”

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Vietnam, Stever said, was a civil war. During World War I and the Korean War, he said there was the belief that men and women were going into the wars with a clear objective — to win. That wasn’t the case with Vietnam, he said.

“They were tired of dealing with the war ... that people were getting killed over there — for what purpose?” he said. “What were we accomplishing? What were we really doing over there?”

While he didn’t receive a warm public embrace upon his return home, his family and hometown in Vermillion, Ohio, welcomed him.

“My dad put a banner in front of the house,” he said. “My friends were happy to see me back home.”

And the niche he found in the service followed him after his November 1996 retirement. From 2002 until April 2011, Stever worked at both Maxwell and Gunter Air Force bases as a quality control manager in the dining halls.

If he could take away anything positive from the war, it would be that he provided a service.

“They loved it. When the guys came in from the field, they were happy to be fed. There’s some satisfaction to your job.”